Yeah, Chris Christie Is Still Running In 2016

WASHINGTON, DC -- John Bloom, a short, Jason Alexanderish fellow from Newport News in Virginia, was standing around outside a ballroom here in the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center and looking very much like a man whose head might just explode. He was there in anticipation of the arrival of Chris Christie, which was the most eagerly anticipated event of the day here at CPAC. This is not necessarily Big Chicken's kind of crowd; it is still unclear whether he was not invited last year or asked out. (I suspect the truth is whatever he thought most politically advantageous.) But he needs to reconnect with The Base after spending a couple of months being battered around regarding his stewardship of the George Washington Bridge, and the activities of all those underlings who betrayed him, Chris Christie, in such an egregious fashion that he could just lay down an weep. Anyway, John Bloom was having none of it.

"The media is biased, but in this case, they're right," Bloom said. "His excuse? He's ignorant. Chris Christie is more like Barack Obama. His ignorance is his excuse. 'Oh, I didn't know what members of my administration were doing.' I don't believe he's a conservative. Why is he here? He either abused his power or he's ignorant. Those are not conservative values. He's not honest."

To be entirely fair, once he got in the hall, Christie was received warmly. (He is, after all, now a victim of the pernicious liberal media, which gives him cred with this crowd that he never had before.) Thus we can conclude that it was Rachel Maddow who made Chris Christie an acceptable movement conservative.) He told a story about how he once bravely went before a booing audience of firefighters and made the case for pension reform, which the crowd here liked. (Whacking public employees of all kinds, especially teachers, is a guaranteed applause line here.) There was no mention of the fact that he's squeezing those pensionsagain right now, which puts him in conflict with the deal he struck in 2011 when he was so brave, and when he wasn't running for president.

He stood in -- spectacularly, you have to admit -- as the defender of the embattled Koch Brothers, without naming them, of course. "What they're for in Washington DC," he said, "is that the leader of the Senate Democrats stands up and rails against two American entrepreneurs who have built a business, created jobs, and created wealth and philanthropy in this country. Harry Reid should get back to work and stop picking on great Americans who are doing great things in our country."

LEEAVVVEEE THE KOCHS ALOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNE!

Maybe he just forgot their names.

Yeah, he's still running.

(There's a lot of people lining up these days to salve the wounded fee-fees of these misunderstood billionnaires. Morning Squint is ladling on the Desitin, too.)

He pitched himself as an example of the kind of leadership that other Republican governors have brought to their states, name-checking Scott Walker, John Kasich, Rick Snyder, and even Rick Scott down in Florida. By contrast, he used an example from the White House that I would almost guarantee caused John Bloom's frontal lobes to detonate. "What you see in Washington is people who only want to talk, they can't stop talking, he said."The most dangerous 10 feet in Washington is between anyone who wants to start talking, and a camera. This is what they're about.

"One story that I love is the president. You remember when they set up this whole supercommittee thing, right? Way back, when they were trying to resolve the budget problems and all the rest. It got nothing done. What did the White House say? The White House said the president never met with the supercommittee or got involved in it because he knew it was doomed to failure. Man, that's leadership, isn't it? You're the leader of the government and you see something about to go off the rails, and you decide to stay as far away from it as possible. If that's your attitude, Mr. President, what the hell are we paying you for? Leadership is not about standing on the sidelines and spitballing."

Or, you chuck a bunch of aides into the Hudson River and try to brazen your way past it by arguing that you had no idea what was going on in your own administration. At this point, Big Chicken was nearly drowned out by the sound of his brass balls clanging away. But he was able to move on to barber a little history about why the Republicans are the party of tolerance, because they allow pro-choice speakers to speak at their conventions. This occasioned:

"We have to stop letting the media define us and what we stand for," he said. "For the first time since Roe vs. Wade, New Jersey has elected a pro-life governor. I got a question last year, 'Governor, you're very popular in a blue state. How can you export that to the rest of the country given the intolerance of social issues of your party?'" And, of course, just as he did with the firefighters, Big Chicken boldly faced down this upstart with an outburst of mendacious twaddle from which he emerged, bloody but triumphant.

"I said, let me ask you a question," he said. "You said Republicans are intolerant. At our national convention, we've had people like Tom Ridge and Colin Powell and Condi Rice speak, even though our party platform and I don't agree with their position on abortion. Tell me, sir, the last pro-life Democrat who was allowed to speak at their party's convention? By the way, don't strain yourself because there's never been one."

Actually, Harry Reid, who spends too much time picking on the Koch Brothers, is pro-life. He spoke in Charlotte. Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania is pro-life. He spoke in 2008. But the facts don't matter. Time[link href='http://time.com/14147/chris-christie-cpac-speech-2016/' target='_blank' link_updater_label='external']saw him

as "humbled." That's a crock. He neither pandered too much nor dissolved in flopsweat. What matters is that Big Chicken is beginning to reconstruct his mythology, a brick at a time. The brave truth-teller who can stand up to the other side and get...things...done. This was the first big step in the project. Somewhere, Bridget Kelly must be completely amazed.

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